Category Archives: Newspapers

Newspapers

Blind survey of what Gannett workers make

Here’s an utterly fascinating post that just about anyone who’s wondered what their coworkers make will want to read. Former Gannett editor Jim Hopkins asks his current and former Gannett’ers what they make — and they answer! Anonymously, of course.

Here’s a sampling:

Years worked: 30 +
Division: Newspaper (above 100,000 circ)
Title: Editor/Manager
Salary: $75,000

Years worked: 19
Years worked for Gannett: 10
Operation: Newspaper
Title: sports copy editor
Salary: $65,000

Years worked: 9.5
Division: USAT
Title: reporter
Salary: $43,800

I.T. Director
Newspaper / 100,000+ circ
8 years at current site / 10.5 years total
$94,000 / year
+ 35 shares of stock (merit)
+ $12,500 MBO bonus

My predecessor at this site was making $99,000 annually.

photographer
15 years in Gannett
$48,000

Wow. Sometimes I wish I was in newspapers still, just for the joy of crafting together a story and being out in the field, but not when I see numbers like that.

Copy editors wanted at the LAT

At least, that’s my guess. I, along with probably thousands of readers clicked on the story, “Is The U.S. going overboard on bailouts?” I, of course, get up around 11, so this story has probably been up for at least 11 hours. But when I clicked on the story, it was still not fixed. Of course, the word “bailout” is arguably a recent phenomenon, correctly used as two distinct words, but morphing into one with all the recent — you got it, bailouts.

upnearly a new LAT word

"upnearly" a new LAT word

Now, one of those “two-words-in-one” gaffes is normal; I was prepared to let it go and just keep reading (even though it was all the way at the top of the story). But then there was another!

bailoutsadd -- a new government word or another LAT word creation?

"bailoutsadd" -- three words in one!

Hopefully, that class-action lawsuit filed by the LAT ex- and current employees can help pay for some new copy editors.

‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ moment? Not quite

CNET’s got screen shots of a few advance stories the L.A. Times had prepared pending the announcement of Obama’s VP. Is it really their ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ moment? Not quite.

First off, journalists have to do this stuff. It’s not fun, believe me. I remember a few years ago, a bunch of AP’s prepared obituaries got out. That’s just a fact of life in journalism. They’re not making things up, as one commenter in the CNET article suggested. They’re preparing — after all, wasn’t the Obama campaign being all coy for a while? Nobody was sure, so as you would expect your local newspaper to do, they were covering all their bases.

Their only boo boo was putting the stories on a server that was accessible by the public. That happens. Just be glad the stories weren’t slugged (named, in news speak) goofy names, like Obama.Chooses.OldGuy or Obama.VP.BallBuster. Yeah, that’s happened, but not exactly like that.

News as we know it

Tombstone for a newspaper
Photo picked up from Global Nerdy

When I was thinking of this post last week, I was mostly thinking of the AP vs. bloggers dustup. In my head, it occurred to me that with the power of search engines like Google, people really don’t need AP to distribute stories — people find their news for themselves and more and more, no longer need so-called experts to help them form opinions about the news. Which is probably why Wired came up with the crazy idea of Google buying the AP. But, they really don’t need to. With Google’s search engine and news bots, and Yahoo’s syndication deals with local TV stations and newspapers (full disclosure: my station has a syndication deal with Yahoo), who needs AP anymore? Ouch.

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